Tomorrow (Thursday) at 10:00 am Eastern, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith will testify before a Congressional committee that will air on CNN.

For the first time, the American public will hear the evidence that a Trump-appointed Florida judge blocked from view before the 2024 election.

Or, at least we’ll be able to hear it. By now it’s a safe bet that the MAGA crowd will denounce it as fake without hearing a single word much less a summary. Also that Fox and other propaganda outlets will omit what they cannot spin and emphasize the screeching denials of Republican committee members such as the rapid-fire-and-ramble-on Jim Jordan, and that the Republican Party will continue its goose-step to the Cult of Personality.

Will it make a difference?

Will more of us be calling for the 25th Amendment even though only the vice-president can invoke it? Seriously? J.D. Vance is a man willing to repeat the deranged claim that residents of Springfield, Ohio–his own constituents at the time–were eating cats and dogs.

That leaves Congress, a body in which the controlling party refuses to act. They get away with it, partly because most of the public pays only superficial attention at best. And partly because the public blames any and all failures of Congress on both parties. Not only that, but they ridicule the party that tries to tell them that action is possible–while rewarding the party that insists action is impossible.

Result? The firefighters are punished while the arsonists are rewarded. Just ask the police who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 against a violent mob that has been pardoned despite evidence, despite convictions, in some cases despite confessions–and is now being considered for financial compensation for their time in jail.

Finally occurs to me that the party controlling Congress really is “Republican in name only.” Pundits often note that they’re a far cry from the senators who told Nixon he had to resign. We should also note they are just as far from the senators and representatives who overrode Reagan’s veto of their attempt to sanction the Union of South Africa for Apartheid. Indeed, the current crew has unanimously signed on to Trump’s welcome mat for “persecuted white farmers” of South Africa who apparently now seek white supremacy here in another USA.

These are not Republicans. They are Cowards.

Can we make it from here to November with a president who threatens war with other countries, and orders military takeovers of American cities? Or is it states, first Minnesota, now Maine, next…? Can we make it with an anti-vax squad in charge of the National Institute for Health and another crank flank working to destroy the Dept. of Education from the inside? Can we make it with every environmental regulation since the creation of the EPA gutted? Ditto with labor laws and occupational safety? Ditto with the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe?

Coal is beautiful and clean if you subscribe to the Cult of Personality.

Will elections take place, or will we be under martial law? And if they are held, will a president who has already said he should have seized ballot boxes in 2020, and who keeps hinting at canceling elections try to rig it?

Sorry for so many questions, but I’m from the Eisenhower years, once immersed in beliefs such as “the greatest form of government in the world.” Our loss of any claim to peaceful transfers of power has already disabused me of the notion, but it raises a question that I have yet to hear:

Why is it impossible to rid ourselves of a leader so obviously dangerous and corrupt?

Canada and all European countries have a parliamentary procedure that allows for “snap elections”–also called a “confidence vote.” In 1980, in their haste to teach the liberal Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s dad) a lesson, Canadians elected one Joe Clark to be their prime minister. For far less damage and far fewer crimes than Trump, Clark was out of office in eleven months.

American journalists have the bad habit of calling these, “special elections.” That’s misleading, as there’s nothing “special” and something written into a Constitution.

For a moment, let’s put aside the parties, the personalities, and the cult of personality. Can we honestly continue to claim that we have the “best” form of government when we can be stuck with the mess we have for at least another year, if not three, if not indefinitely?

Go ahead and waste time calling for the 25th A. But please consider that there’s another Constitutional amendment for which this mess calls.

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